SuperBladePro
SuperBladePro gives graphics a 3-D look by creating beveled edges and surface textures. The effects can be subtle or stark, raised or sunken. There are several kinds of bevels, textures, and mirrorlike reflections, and controls for light, gloss, iridescence, tarnish, glassiness, and more. It's a timesaving way to make touchable-looking text, web buttons, and special effects.
Super BladePro can use the preset files from the original BladePro.
To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.0 plugins.
Just put the plug-in filter into the folder where your paint program expects to find it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->SuperBladePro.
Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme.
If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in filter into it, and then tell PSP to look there.
PSP 5 and 6:
Choose the menu File-> Preferences->General Program Preferences... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab. Use one of the "Browse" buttons to choose the folder that contains the plug-in.
The plugin is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Image->Plug-in Filters-->Flaming Pear->SuperBladePro.
PSP 7:
Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab. Use one of the "Browse" buttons to choose the folder that contains the plug-in.
The plugin is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->SuperBladePro
PSP 8:
Choose the menu File-> Preferences-> File Locations... In the dialog box that appears, choose Plug-ins from the list. Click "Add", then click "Browse" and choose the folder that contains the plug-in.
The plugin is now installed. To use it, open any image and select an area. From the menus, choose Effects->Plugins->Flaming Pear->SuperBladePro.
When you invoke SuperBladePro, a dialog box will appear:
| Quick start |
|||
| Click the dice button a few times until you see something that
you like.
Click OK. The progress bar will appear, and then your selection
will have a new 3-D look. |
| Bring the filter back and take a look at the controls. On left
are a popup menu and several sliders. Shape: Choose the shape of the bevel from this popup menu. Choose from straight, curved, up-and-down, and doubled forms. The last shape is a Gaussian bevel which produces a very smooth result at the expense of some detail. Radius: The width, in pixels, of the beveled edge. If this is more than half the width of the widest partof the selection, no area will be left unbeveled. Height: Larger values here give the bevel a steeper appearance. Positive values cause the selection to rise out of its background, and negative values make it sink in. Smoothness: Larger values reduce the rippled appearance of the bevel. (If
you want the kind of smoothing found in earlier versions of BladePro,
set Smoothness to zero.) |
dice
bevel shapes |
| Texture specifies the amount of texturing, if any. Positive values make
the texture rise out of the bevel, negative ones make it sink
in.
Embossing makes the brightness of the underlying image influence the shape. Gloss controls the shininess. Zero gives a chalky appearance; higher numbers are glossier. Glare controls the size of the glossy highlight. Reflection controls how much the selection reflects the Environment graphic. If you don't want any reflection at all, turn this slider down to zero. Glassiness gives the selection a glassy rather than opaque appearance. The color of the original image becomes the color of the glass. Caustic, for glassy selections, this slider controls the brightness of the caustic highlight that appears opposite the light source. The tiny square just to the right of the slider lets you choose prismatic or white caustics. Iridescence controls the strength of iridescent coloration, and... Iri colors controls the choice of colors. Together, Caustic and Iridescence reproduce the effect that gives soap bubbles their colors: if light is reflected from two surfaces separated by a very thin, transparent layer, interference colors will appear. Light angle controls are the two grey spheres. To change the placement of a light, drag the small blue dot to a new position. Best results come from placing the light somewhere in the upper half of the ball. Spotlight sliders next to the light angle controls can produce uniform illumination or a spotlight effect. Color-buttons are for changing the lights' colors. If you want to turn a light
completely off, set its color to black.
|
plain bevel with gloss
reflection and texture
glassiness and prismatic caustics
iridescence
color button |
| The next column of controls has an assortment of buttons and pictures
concerned with texture and reflections.
Texture popup menu chooses the texture you want. The first item is 'no texture'; the next eleven items are built-in textures; and the last item is the custom texture. You can use any greyscale BMP file as a custom texture. To do this, select the custom texture item from the popup menu, and use the file browser you'll then see to choose a picture. SuperBladePro will load the picture and use it as a texture. The texture graphic is just below. Clicking on it is another way you can load a new texture file, and you can reposition the texture by dragging it with the mouse. Texture files are "height fields" and describe the shape of a surface: black is low, white is high, grey is in between. SuperBladePro comes with several texture files in its 'environments and textures ' folder, and you can make your own. They can be as large as 256 by 256 pixels (larger ones will be squeezed to fit) and the right edge should wrap seamlessly around to the left, and the top to the bottom. The texture zoom slider is right below the texture graphic. It lets you scale the texture up or down by a factor of 16. Next is the environment graphic: When Reflection is on, Blade will produce mirrorlike reflections of the environment graphic. Just click on the graphic and you can load any BMP file as an environment. You can find several samples in the 'environments and textures' folder that came with SuperBladePro. If you don't want your selection to be reflective, turn the reflection slider down to zero. Some of the example environments, like 'gold', appear to contain their own light source coming from the top left. If that conflicts with your design plan, you can spin the environment with - amazingly enough - the environment spinner button, so that it better matches the rest of the lighting. This button is the one with the little curly arrow on it. |
texture popup texture graphic
texture zoom
environment graphic with spinner button |
| Dice randomize the settings. Click it as much as you want to see different
effects.
Glue mode lets you combine the sun with the underlying image in various ways. Modes other than "normal" produce special effects. Plus % and minus buttons: if the selected image area is larger than the preview are, these buttons will let you zoom in and out . You can also reposition the preview by dragging it around; your cursor will turn into a hand. Auto Preview makes the preview update automatically whenever you move any control. Turn it off if you want to save time. Load preset: SuperBladePro comes with some presets, which are files containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset file. Save preset: When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the
settings in a file. |
dice
glue mode
Load preset (top) |
| Update folder lets you update a whole folder full of presets to the newest version. If you have a folder full of presets from original BladePro, you can automatically turn them into SuperBladePro presets containing previews. |
update folder |
At the bottom of the screen are some more controls. SuperBladePro can simulate water stains. This uses four sliders: Rain is the amount of water falling from the top of the selection. Evaporation sets the rate at which water evaporates. If evaporation is greater than rain, waterstains may only appear near wrinkles in the surface. Diffusion controls the horozontal spread of the water Wander makes water wander over flat areas instead of falling straight down. There are two rain color buttons. As rain becomes heavier, the color changes from the first color to the second. There is a wet/dry checkbox which controls whether the rain acts like opaque paint or transparent dye.
|
hubcap with rain
more evaporation
less diffusion
less wander
wet rain |
| The remaining controls produce a weathered or damaged appearance.
Dust makes dull powder appear on upward-facing surfaces. Grit puts high-frequency noise in the texture. Tarnish puts dull, matte color in the concave parts of the surface. The color-button just to the right of the slider lets you change the tarnish color. Abrasion is similar to Tarnish, but it puts dirt on convex areas. Moss places moss-like matter on upward-facing surfaces. Moss has two color buttons: one for the moss itself, one for the underlying soil. Leakiness makes the moss leak water, and makes the blotches soak it the resulting stains. Blotches grows lichen-like blobs. Blotches have color, scale, and coverage controls. Blotch Size makes the blotches bigger or smaller. The random seed nearby changes the detail of the blotches. You can click it repeatedly until you see the effect you like. |
dust and grit
green tarnish & red abrasion
moss
blotches
random seed |
| Five effects you can try
1. A web button |
|
||
Suppose you want to make a web button that has the word "Go" on
it.
For a more sophisticated effect, make a button as above but without the word "Go". Instead, make a blank button. Then, in a new layer, make a selection in the shape of the word "Go" and use SuperBladePro to make the word look like gold; use the preset called called 'gold, basic'. Last, settle the word "Go" on the button by giving it a drop shadow. |
 |
| 2. A ruby |
|||
Make a selection with some straight sides and fill it with ruby-red. Bring up SuperBladePro and decide how you want your ruby to look. |
 |
| 3. A glassy logo |
|||
Use your text tool to write a word in 50% gray, using a large, husky font - say, Gill Sans Bold at 100 pt. |
 |
| 4. Tarnished metal |
|||
Select a region of your image, and call up SuperBladePro. |
 |
| 5. Iridescent surfaces |
|||
Select a part of your image, and call up SuperBladePro, and load the preset called 'ski goggles 1'. |
 |
| Hints |
|||||||
| Selections with an antialiased edge will yield vastly better results
than ones with hard edges. Most paint programs have an option
to create an antialiased edge for text-shaped and freehand selections.
If you find that the textures look grainy, try setting your monitor to 24-bit (millions of colors) mode rather than 16-bit (thousands of colors) mode. The environment and texture graphics can be any BMP file at all, and you can use your paint software to make your own. Included with SuperBladePro are... 2am burrs
Free SuperBladePro tutorials are available here: http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html . Several Extra Texture Packs are available for free -- check http://www.flamingpear.com/textures.html . If you want to make your own metal environments, it aids realism to make the bright parts slightly bluer and the dark parts slightly redder than your base hue. If you want to produce a scene with shiny objects in front of some backdrop, you can use a small (64x64 pixels or so) version of the backdrop as your environment map. This way the shiny objects will match their background. There's an example of this at http://www.flamingpear.com/bladex2.html . Constructing a 3-D shape from a selection's edge results in a slightly ripply surface, so reflections tend to have fine striations in them. For that reason, the best results come from environments with contrasty ramps of color and a bare minimum of detail. Take a look at the included samples to get an idea. You can use bevels with a small radius and negative height to create a chiseled edge. SuperBladePro can be used purely as a texture generator; just set Bevel Height to zero, and reduce Radius to the minimum. Try this using the texture 'dimples' and some tarnish. You can make your own textures: dark areas are low, bright areas are high. Try this recipe: Find an interesting piece of a some image. Try inverting the grey values of the whole image. If the picture becomes generally darker, then use the inverted picture. That way, positive settings of the texture slider will produce bumps, and negative settings pits. |
| Frequently Asked Questions Answers to troubleshooting questions appear online at http://www.flamingpear.com/faq.html. More presets and tutorials appear here and here. You can check for new releases of the filter at www.flamingpear.com . And if you have ideas for improvements, or commentary, or questions, please email support@flamingpear.com. |
You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.
Answers to common technical questions appear on the support page, and free upgrades appear periodically on the download page.
Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact admin@kagi.com.
For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@flamingpear.com .